BTS opposes the establishment of the Grammy Asian category: "We will not submit next year" boycott declared

BTS officially declared a boycott in protest of the Recording Academy’s establishment of a new Asian music category at the Grammy Awards. The Recording Academy recently subdivided existing genres such as R&B and folk while creating the Asian music category. This decision has been criticized for potentially racial segregation. The Recording Academy is an organization composed of professionals and industry insiders from the U.S. music industry and has been criticized for its Western-centric voting tendencies and passive evaluation of people of color. Recently, all BTS members stated on social media, ″We have decided not to submit for next year’s Grammys,″ expressing the view that ″music should be loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.″ As a result, they have effectively boycotted the 69th Annual Grammy Awards scheduled for 2027. Over the past three years, the Grammys nominated BTS and featured a solo performance, but the group did not win any awards. During this period, BTS’s appearances reportedly brought high streaming traffic and advertising revenue online for the Grammys. However, as BTS failed to win for three consecutive years, criticism arose that K-pop artists were being used merely as a tool to secure viewership ratings. Disney+ secured the broadcasting rights for the Grammy Awards starting next year and signed a long-term contract worth hundreds of billions of won over ten years. Given that BTS and the global K-pop fandom have played a significant role in increasing the Grammys’ live viewership and online mentions, there is analysis that BTS’s boycott could impact the advertising revenue of Disney+ and the Grammys. Online rumors suggested that the Grammys would have to pay Disney a penalty of 60 billion won due to BTS’s boycott, but it was confirmed that the broadcasting rights contract does not include penalty clauses related to the participation of specific artists. Recently, at their concert at the New York New Jersey stadium in the U.S., BTS performed ″Mic Drop″ with the lyrics, ″No more to see. This is the last goodbye. Nothing more to say.″ RM altered some lyrics, saying, ″We were born in Korea. They don’t know us.″